


Bedtime Stories Will Lead You Home

by heretherebefics



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Time Babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 15:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5545574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heretherebefics/pseuds/heretherebefics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Doctor and River end their night on Darillium, their daughter has to say goodbye to her mother, but she has a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedtime Stories Will Lead You Home

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the Christmas Special if you haven't watched it yet.

They watched the sunrise together from the TARDIS, the last hours of twenty four years awash in light. They had done so much in those years that for a while she even forgot the clock was counting down. They had laughed together more than ever, fell in love all over again and this time she had no doubt, but it was time to face the sun.

He kissed her and held her close. “I love you, my River.”

She held him tight for a moment before turning to look at the face so much like hers that it broke her hearts. The woman before her tried to smile for her before she clutched her tight, kissing her temple before holding their daughter close enough to feel her hearts hammering.

Both women felt the tears sliding down their skin as they clutched each other and River remembered skint knees and nightmares. She knew she had done so many things wrong, but the woman in her arms was the one thing she knew was right.

As River pulled away, their little girl gave her a soft kiss before pulling her into a hug again. “Hold your breath,” she whispered. “You’ll know when.”

“I love you sweetheart,” she said, tamped down the questions that rose and gave her a watery smile before picking up her bag. “Now get going,” she said to the two, her smile warming a little. “I have work to do.”

“Bring me something pretty,” her mirror said, as she always did in those years when River would decide to dig.

The Doctor looked for the right words but couldn’t find them. He wanted to tell her so much, but nothing felt right, no speech changed this. 

She stepped out of the TARDIS, looking at the station that would take her to work, to the university, and to the expedition she was now sure would be her last. She gave her daughter’s hands one last squeeze before walking towards the station, pausing to look back at her family. Twenty four years would have never been enough but it had been so much.

She dropped her bag and ran back, stealing one last kiss.

“I love you,” he said softly. “Always and completely.”

River gave them one last smile before she shouldered her bag and walked into the station that would carry her away from the man she loved forever and the woman she would never stop loving.

~*~*~

Her hearts had broken, and she had lied. Now she glanced at him, eyes closed and handcuffed in place, tears sliding down her cheeks as she finished the wiring that would save him. That would give him their time.

She wondered if he would take her diary when it was over. She thought briefly that she should have asked him, proper him, to take it, if only for their daughter. Then the time for thinking was done. She had to lie to him one more time, and then it would be done.

As she watched the time tick down, she looked back at him and pictured the face she had left and the face that looked so like hers as she closed her eyes and touched the wires and, because her daughter had asked, held her breath.

Her eyes snapped open in shock when she felt the warm hands on hers and the softest of kisses. “Hold on,” her daughter said, smiling. “We’re doing this together.”

River held her gaze as long as she could, her lungs burning from the effort, her body temperature skyrocketing as the system burned through her and all the time her daughter’s hands clutched hers, and she told her just a little longer, just hold on. River wanted to tell her to go, to leave her, to stop whatever she was doing.

“I can hear you,” she said softly, sweat dripping from her face from the effort of channeling energy to her mother. “But I’m a Pond girl. I’m stubborn as hell and if gran can save the universe and dad with a story and a little nudge from you, and you can save dad over and over again, including this, I’m sure as hell going to do something too.”

Her daughter’s face was the last thing she saw, her voice the last thing she heard, as everything became too white.

~*~*~

She felt the water surrounding her before she heard the splashing. She fought down the rising panic being submerged always brought before she felt the warm pulse of the heart of the TARDIS. Then she heard the cursing as she was dragged out of the water, the laboured breathing and the colossal splash.

She tried to think, tried to open her eyes but everything seemed too much. She couldn’t remember being in a pool, or why she would have been there. She finally fought, opening her eyes and focusing on the next splash in time to see the Doctor drag their daughter out of the water, looking far too pale. 

Everything came rushing back as she watched him try to resuscitate her. Everything went black as she struggled to move, to do something to save her.

~*~

When she came to again, she tried to sit up, to go to her, but the strong hand on her chest stopped her. Before she could fight it, she realized it was her husband, talking to her and holding her in place in the med bay. “Where is she?” Her voice was a rasp, barely audible over the beeps around them.

“She’s fine,” he said, moving his hand and letting her shift. “She’s beside you. She’s right here.”

“I’m right here mum.” The voice nearly matched hers in rasp. “Now rest.”

And she did, her sleep deepening when she felt her daughter slip onto the bed beside her, once again reminding her of nights when nightmares plagued her baby girl, only to be fought off in her mother’s arms.

~*~

She woke to soft beeps again and sound of two people snoring softly. She looked at them, wondering how long she had been asleep for the Doctor to need to rest.

River took stock of the damage, slowly moving her limbs. At the pain from flexing her fingers, she looked down at her hands, her palms still healing from the burns. She imagined that the skin, pink towards her wrist and fingers but angry red along the center, likely to be added to her list of scars, slicing through the middle of her life line. Not that she believe any of it, but she remembered Amy carefully tracing out the lines on Mels, who rolled her eyes the entire time Amy made a prediction from the little book she had bought.

“Good morning.” 

She turned her head to look at the sleepy face of her daughter who started to rub her eyes and then swore, glancing at her palms before resting them on her lap.

“Sweetheart,” River said softly. “If you ever try something like that again, I swear to all the gods in the universe…” She dropped off, choking back a sob.

Jessie rose and hugged her mother. “Then don’t go trying to die on me again. I need my mum. I’m still on my first regeneration. Well, mostly.”

“How many?”

She shrugged and smiled. “Five or six, but who’s counting?”

River couldn’t help smiling; she didn’t have much room to talk, could scold too much for giving up possible futures for someone. “How? The timeline…”

“Everything played out, he took the neural relay and uploaded you, it’s just theoretically a minute or two shorter than you were there,” she shrugged. “None of the previous uploads included the moment of death. Most cut out several moments.” She rose and got her mother a drink. “So, since dad couldn’t figure it out, I did. I’ve been working on it a while.” 

“But I remember it,” River said, taking the cup gingerly and taking slow sips. “CAL. I remember being there.”

“Yeah, no way around it.” She gave an apologetic smile. “Dad interacted with you while you were in there, so I had to wait to retrieve the file, especially since you saved his life again, and the Paternosters. I can’t very well steal Jenny away from Vastra if they didn’t make it.”

River laughed even though her lungs burned. Their daughter had claimed to have fallen madly in love with Jenny when she was five and asked her to run away with her. “Was it you then? The soporific?”

“I may have been involved. I didn’t want you to be lonely in there,” She nodded to her father. “And he wouldn’t leave your side, or mine, here. It’s been…well, a while. This is the first he’s slept. I may have drugged him.”

River smiled. “I always told him you took after me.”

“The women who saved the Doctor,” she said with a grin. “Just not the same one.”

River laughed again, wheezing slightly, and patted the bed beside her. “You didn’t make a deal with the devil did you?”

“Which one?” Jessie smirked and quirked an eyebrow before shaking her head. “You saved dad with a kiss.”

“Right,” River said, clearly inviting her to continue.

“And gave him regeneration energy to cure the incurable. Certain death, even for a time lord.”

“I don’t see how that helps,” River said, staring at her daughter now.

“And when he was dying on a beach, you sent a distress call to the universe,” she said happily. “And when gran was taken, dad called in favours.”

“You don’t have any favours to call in,” River said, doubt creeping into her voice. What had her daughter done?

“Oddly enough, I had a few,” Jessie said with a smirk. “But you have quite a lot of them and even you say we look alike. Turns out, letting a few people who owe you know you were dying and I was your daughter, and that I had a plan, was enough. Jim says hello, by the way, and Jack wants to have drinks some time.” She touched her lips and smiled before shaking herself away from thinking about Jack. 

“So I learned it all from you really. All my bedtime stories.” She smiled and rested her head against her mother’s shoulder for a moment, lightly touching the small burn at her temple. “So, a kiss to seal it. Did you know that if you take some dust from a Weeping Angel and tinker a bit that it can be used to quantum lock anything in the right conditions?”

She grinned, and River could see her bowtie wearing husband coming through in the joy of talking about a plan. 

“Because no one did. Just you and me now.” She tapped her pointer finger against her lip, making her mother laugh seeing her own gesture repeated back. “Most of the vital inside bits are safe, at the very least from interference with normal electrical pulses, the skin’s less conductive. Makes it far easier to save something if it’s half statue and entirely safe for the person who’s locked.”

“You had to hold your breath to seal the lock, which I placed before you left,” she smiled and pressed a soft kiss to her lips again, the slightest brush. “Mixing that lipstick was no picnic. Incredibly long wear though, so I also reformulated your hallucinogenic. It also had a smidge of nanotracker particles added. Big library, needed something more than the sonic and help from the TARDIS to make sure I didn’t find not quite dad instead.”

She climbed off the bed and began to walk around it. “So, kiss, check. Beacon, with a bit of help from dad’s gift and the TARDIS, check. All I needed was to pop in, help you complete the loop and give you enough regeneration energy to complete the transfer without burning out. That turned out to be a little more difficult than expected,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “First time using it, got a bit carried away. Just one of the many reasons I need you; you have a system, dad just lets it go. I had to hold off a regeneration, funnel a bit extra into you. Then the manipulator did its job at the end of the transfer and since chances were that both our bodies would need to cool down to avoid frying any vital organs once the lock was broken, we landed in the pool. You may remember that a little more than I do.”

River took her hand and held it despite the pain. “Unfortunately.”

“I came to here. Dad was waiting. He wouldn’t tell me, but I think he might have given us both a little extra energy on the way to the med bay. He said it had been about a week. You woke up, looking for me, but you still needed to heal. He had given you a bit more regeneration energy, helped you sink into the healing sleep,” Jessie rubbed her mother’s and studied her palms for a second. “I popped ahead, downloaded you, and synced your memories so it would all be there when you came to.”

“I also picked some things up.” She pointed to the table beside the bed, which held a pair of diaries, one battered and warped, the other bright blue and brand new. “You said you always need something to read on a space ship, so I thought you might want to be able to relive old times. I also thought you might want a new one. Habit and all.” She reached across the bed and handed the new one to her mother. “Open it.”

River took it and sat it in her lap and opened the cover. She was struck by the gilded pattern inside, the gold and silver swirls shifting on the page through a series of patterns, the Gallifreyian showing the date and time before changing to messages.

“Built in psychic paper, with a few letters from us,” Jessie said with a small smile. “You can also store your pens in the back cover.”

River tore her gaze away from the messages, from her daughter and her husband, telling her she was loved. She finally noticed how many pages the diary held. She touched the paper, turning the page and finding she had lifted four instead. 

“The paper’s designed to last a couple centuries. There’s about 30,000 pages, give or take, so it might take a while for the compression field to sort it all out.” She smiled at her mother, flipping back to the first empty page. “You’re really back. You’re really here and I absolutely expect you to fill every one of those pages. If you do, when you do, there’s nine more waiting for you. Dad may have known the number of pages you needed, but I’m giving you the number of pages I want you to have, that I want you to fill.”

“Oh, and I almost forgot. Look at the front, really look,” Jessie said, easing the cover shut.

River looked at it, tilting the volume slightly down. Gilded lettering appearing, bearing the title ‘The Continuing Adventures of River Song.’ 

“Daddy gave up the hope of saving you. You gave up hope because he did. He told you he couldn’t fix it, couldn’t avoid it,” she said, the pain evident in her voice. “But he told gran she couldn’t save him either. You managed it, the pair of you. Somehow. He couldn’t be saved, he was dying from an incurable poison but you found a way.” 

She whimpered, fighting down tears, and pushed on. “If I had needed to make a deal with the devil to save you, I would have. I would have made a deal with all of them. You wouldn’t have thanked me for it and it would disrespect everything you’ve ever taught me, but I would have if it meant you were still alive. I learned that from both of you. But I didn’t have to. I was just cleverer than you both, just this once.” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she shook her head. “I had no intention of dying. I guess I could have, but I grabbed onto the hope. I needed a song.”

River brushed the tears away with her thumb, her own now streaking her cheeks. “Sweetheart, I did. I needed a song and I certainly didn’t expect one, but I got one.” She shifted and kissed her forehead. “I’m glad you only want to be cleverer once. Once is a gift. Always be clever, but…” She sighed and looked at her palms again. “I wouldn’t recommend being the cleverest. It makes it rather dull, well, until you end up nearly dead. That does liven up a party.”

“Can you just leave the dying to dad? He almost never actually makes it there!” She threw up her hands and laughed. “Mother, for the woman who killed the Doctor, you’re really rubbish at it.”

River narrowed her eyes and finally sat her glass aside. “Jessica Elizabeth Song, you know damn well that’s because I’m a sentimental fool when it comes to your father. There are plenty of people I killed properly.”

“Tyrant,” Jessie said with a grin.

“Such an ungrateful child,” River said, trying to look stern but falling into helpless giggles. “If you ever try to save me again, I’ll show you just how good I can be at killing people.”

Jessie smiled and climbed back into the bed, cuddling up against her mother. “Well, I guess if you want me to live, you’d better leave the dying to dad. We’ll take turns saving him.”

River kissed her daughter’s forehead as her husband stirred. “Deal. Or we can do it together.”

“Stop plotting my death,” he grumbled.

“She’s rubbish at your death,” Jessie said, earning a swat from her mother. “If she keeps trying, maybe you’ll live forever.”

“Maybe I won’t wait until you try to save me again,” River said, poking her in the side and then wincing, forgetting the tender flesh temporarily. It was so like a normal day that she had forgot about it being the worst what felt like hours ago. “I think ancient Earth texts say something about honoring your father and mother.”

Jessie snorted and rolled her eyes. “And if you just stop letting other people try to kill you dad, mum wouldn’t have to do these things. I should just lock you in the TARDIS.”

“Been there, done that,” River said with a smirk, earning a face from Jessie. Her smirk became a grin. “How do you think we had you?”

“You’re both ridiculous,” Jessie said, laying her head on her mother’s shoulder. “Does that mean I should ask Santa for a sibling for Christmas, just to keep you both out of trouble?”

River and the Doctor laughed and looked at each other. No clock now. They could spend their time however they liked and River couldn’t help having a few ideas. “Careful what you wish for sweetheart.” She beckoned the Doctor closer and kissed him, pouring everything she felt into it just to remind herself it was all real. She really was home, she thought as her husband pulled her closer and her daughter made a sound of disgust behind her.

When she pulled away, she slipped back against her pillows, eyes close to relish it all.

“It’s good to be home,” she said.

Jessie and the Doctor each kissed her cheek. “It’s good to have you,” Jessie said.

They sat there a moment, a united front, relishing the moment. Jessie shifted her head on her mother’s shoulder, looking her in the eye again. “So, what did you bring me?”

River laughed before gesturing to herself. “I’m it.”

Jessie rested her head on her mother’s shoulder again. “Well, I brought you, but you are the most beautiful thing to ever come back from one of your digs.” She started to laughed, reaching across her mother and poking her father in the chest. “I think it’s your turn to bring something pretty back from an adventure. After all, we came from mum’s last adventure.”

He mumbled, saying he had brought plenty of things home. “Maybe I’ll just bring bloody Cleopatra. She’s popular around here.”

Jessie laughed as her parents dissolved into bickering about Cleopatra and other spouses. It really was home.


End file.
